Day: October 5, 2017

‘It’s one of the trickiest legal and ethical questions of the modern age: should terrorists be denied their human rights in the interest of security? Should they simply be treated as rights-less? Come and hear an in-depth discussion of this vital contemporary matter, from a legal, philosophical and practical perspective.’

‘Sir Edward Heath would have been questioned over sex abuse claims if he was alive when they came to light, police have said. Wiltshire Police launched Operation Conifer in 2015 when the former PM was accused of historical child sex abuse. The Conservative politician would have been interviewed under caution over seven claims, including the alleged rape of an 11-year-old, they said. No inference of guilt should be drawn from this, police stressed.’

‘Thomas v Lambeth LBC, County Court at Central London, 16 March 2017. This is a s.204 appeal in the County Court of a vulnerability decision by Lambeth. Of particular interest is that the judgment concerns and indeed turns on Now Medical reports on the homeless applicant and the use made of them by LB Lambeth on s.184 decision and on s.202 review.’

‘An investigation has been launched into the death of a 38-year-old immigration detainee after the Home office confirmed that a Jamaican man died on Tuesday while he was being held at Morton Hall immigration removal centre in Lincoln. It is the third such death in less than a month and human rights campaigners have expressed alarm at the incident. The prisons and probation ombudsman has begun an investigation.’

‘Einstein famously said that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. The nature of time is not an easy concept to grapple with and I had a similar (albeit not quite so ethereal) experience preparing a recent seminar on the practical effect of the decision in Carillion Construction v Emcor Engineering Services relating to contiguous (or rather non-contiguous) extensions of time.’

‘A private hire cab driver in Milton Keynes has been convicted of illegally plying for hire (blagging), with the magistrates’ court rejecting his argument that as he had make the booking on behalf of the customer the fare was lawful.’

‘The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has accused a council of not doing enough to safeguard a family who made multiple appeals for help to protect their younger children from threats of violence made by their teenage son.’

‘The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has refused solicitor Walter Merricks permission to appeal its decision to deny him a collective proceedings order (CPO) that would allow him bring a £14bn action against Mastercard on behalf of 46m people.’

‘Britain and other European countries have been accused of breaching international law, as it emerged that the number of asylum seekers forced to return to Afghanistan has tripled at a time when civilian casualties in the country are at a record high.’

‘A challenge to GCHQ’s use of non-specific warrants to authorise the bulk hacking of smartphones, computers and networks in the UK is starting at the court of appeal.
The case, brought by the campaign group Privacy International (PI), is the latest twist in a protracted battle about both the legality of bulk surveillance and the primacy of civil courts over an intelligence tribunal that operates partly in secret.’

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